he stirred, breathing in deep and turning over under the warmth of the cover. only the finest silk and purest cotton in the kuchiki's ancestral estate. but it wasn't the futon and the stuffed duvet that really warded him against the cold.
โ ... the servants. they'll be awake by then ... โ there was some irony in his concern, that if not for byakuya's words, ryuuken might've let himself too easily to slip into comfortable unconsciousness until the morn.
he didn't move to leave, however. instead reaching behind him to search for the swordsman's hand under the blankets. once he found it, he laced their fingers together in the gap between their bodies -- the little, physical sign that he didn't, really, want to leave.
the wind howling outside gave him a different excuse to scoot in closer against the warmth of byakuya's body.
โ ... just until sunrise. โ ryuuken muttered, pulling byakuya's arm over to wrap around his shoulders. he pulled byakuya's hand toward his lips. his hand over byakuya's hand, same as the day they met on the porch by the garden; he took byakuya's hand first, yielded first, asked to be loved first. at that time, he thought that would be his life forever, grasping, scrapping for affection from the icy veins of the man known as kuchiki byakuya. but now ...
a faint but meaningful smile rose to ryuuken's lips. he pressed the curve to the back of byakuya's hand.
โ i'll stay -- only because you asked. โ
